Dear EarthTalk:Cyanide fishing

Dear EarthTalk: I heard of a practice called cyanide fishing, which is
used mostly to collect aquarium specimens, but I understand it is also
used to catch fish we eat. Isn’t this very unhealthy? — Phil Seymour,
Albany, NYCyanide fishing, whereby divers crush cyanide tablets into plastic
squirt bottles of sea water and puff the solution to stun and capture
live coral reef fish, is widely practiced throughout Southeast Asia
despite being illegal in most countries of the region. The practice
began in the 1960s in the Philippines as a way to capture live reef
fish for sale primarily to European and North American aquarium
owners—a market now worth some $200 million a year.
But today the technique is also used to supply specialty restaurants
in Hong Kong and other large Asian cities. There high roller customers
can choose which live fish they want prepared on the spot for their
dinner at a cost of up to $300 per plate in what the non-profit World
Resources Institute (WRI) calls “an essential status symbol for major
celebrations and business occasions.” WRI adds that as the East Asian
economy has boomed in recent decades, live reef food fish has become a
trade worth $1 billion annually.
Of course, the cyanide itself is no good for the fish that ingest it.
Internet chat boards are rife with comments about cyanide-caught
aquarium fish developing cancer within a year of being purchased. And
many aquarium owners are willing to pay a premium for “net-caught”
ornamental fish as they have a longer life expectancy.
But perhaps the greater damage inflicted by cyanide fishing is to the
coral reefs where it is employed, as cyanide kills the reefs and also
many of the life forms that rely on them. Researchers estimate that
more than a million kilograms of cyanide have been squirted onto
Philippine reefs alone over the last half century. These days the
practice is much more widespread, with some of the world’s most
productive reefs being decimated.
“Despite the fact that cyanide fishing is nominally illegal in
virtually all Indo-Pacific countries, the high premium paid for live
reef fish, weak enforcement capacities, and frequent corruption have
spread the use of the poison across the entire region — home of the
vast majority of the planet’s coral reefs,” reports WRI. “As stocks in
one country are depleted, the trade moves on to new frontiers, and
cyanide fishing is now confirmed or suspected in countries stretching
from the central Pacific to the shores of East Africa. Sadly, the most
pristine reefs, far from the usual threats of sedimentation, coral
mining and coastal development, are the primary target for cyanide
fishing operations.”
While there is not much evidence of cyanide-caught fish poisoning the
people who eat it — the dose retained by a fish after being puffed is
relatively small — the risk nevertheless remains, especially for those
who ingest a lot of it. Nausea and gastritis are the typical symptoms
of cyanide poisoning, and of course larger doses can cause death. WRI
estimates that some 20 percent of the live fish for sale at markets
across Southeast Asia are caught using cyanide. Children, the elderly
and pregnant women should be especially careful to avoid
cyanide-caught fish.
* * * * *
Dear EarthTalk: I don’t hear much about the environmental impacts of
our consumer culture any more, but it seems to me that our “buy, buy,
buy” mentality is a major contributor to our overuse of energy and
resources. Are any organizations addressing this issue today? — M.
Oakes, Miami, FL
There is no doubt that our overly consumerist culture is contributing
to our addiction to oil and other natural resources and the pollution
of the planet and its atmosphere.
Unfortunately the tendency to acquire and even horde valuable goods
may be coded into our DNA. Researchers contend that humans are
subconsciously driven by an impulse for survival, domination and
expansion which finds expression in the idea that economic growth will
solve all individual and worldly ills. Advertising plays on those
impulses, turning material items into objects of great desire
imparting intelligence, status and success.
William Rees of the University of British Columbia reports that human
society is in a “global overshoot,” consuming 30 percent more material
than is sustainable from the world’s resources. He adds that 85
countries are exceeding their domestic “bio-capacities” and compensate
for their lack of local material by depleting the stocks of other
countries.
Of course, every one of us can do our part by limiting our purchases
to only what we need and to make responsible choices when we do buy
something. But those who might need a little inspiration to get
started should look to the Adbusters Media Foundation, a
self-described “global network of artists, activists, writers,
pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance
the new social activist movement of the information age.”
Among the foundation’s most successful campaigns is Buy Nothing Day,
an international day of protest typically “celebrated” the Friday
after Thanksgiving in North America (so-called Black Friday, one of
the year’s busiest shopping days) and the following Saturday in some
60 other countries. The idea is that for one day a year we commit to
not purchase anything, and to help spread the anti-consumerist message
to anyone who will listen, with the hope of inspiring people to
consume less and generate less waste the other 364 days of the year.
The first Buy Nothing Day took place in Vancouver, British Columbia in
1992 with a few dozen participants, but today hundreds of thousands of
people all over the world take part.
In recent years some anti-consumerists have added Buy Nothing
Christmas to their agendas as well.
Some ideas for how to leverage Buy Nothing Christmas sentiment without
looking too much like Scrooge include giving friends and family “gift
exemption” cards and asking shoppers in line at a big box store, “What
would Jesus buy?”
Beyond Buy Nothing Day and Buy Nothing Christmas, the Adbusters Media
Foundation stokes the fire of anti-consumerism throughout the year via
its bi-monthly publication, Adbusters, an ad-free magazine with an
international circulation topping 120,000. Do yourself a favor and
subscribe… and cancel all those catalogs stuffing up your mailbox in
the meantime.

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